Generally, a wind turbine includes a tower, a nacelle mounted on the tower, and a rotor coupled to the nacelle. The rotor typically includes a rotatable hub and a plurality of rotor blades coupled to and extending outwardly from the hub. Each rotor blade may be spaced about the hub so as to facilitate rotating the rotor to enable kinetic energy to be transferred from the wind into usable mechanical energy, and subsequently, electrical energy.
To properly orient the rotor blades relative to the direction of the wind, wind turbines typically include one or more yaw drive mechanisms configured to engage a yaw bearing for rotating the nacelle relative to the tower. Additionally, to control such rotation, a wind turbine may include one or more yaw brake assemblies having brake pads configured to frictionally engage the yaw bearing. Due to the frictional sliding between the brake pads and the yaw bearing, the pads generally wear over time. Thus, it is necessary to periodically inspect the yaw brake assemblies of the wind turbine to determine whether any or all of the brake pads need to be replaced.
Current brake pad inspection methods require that a maintenance worker climb the wind turbine and either perform manual measurements of the brake pads or disassemble the brake assemblies to allow for visual inspection of the brake pads. Unfortunately, this inspection method is very expensive and time consuming. Additionally, since the inspection method requires that the wind turbine be shutdown, such inspections are typically performed only at normal maintenance intervals. Thus, wear issues occurring between the maintenance intervals go unnoticed, which can lead to significant damage to the wind turbine brake system.
Accordingly, a system for actively monitoring wear on a brake pad of a wind turbine would be welcomed in the technology.